detain her by fresh entreaties after she had described how her aged
husband was suffering from her absence.

"I often ask myself what he still finds in me," she said. "True, so long
a period of wedded life is a firm tie. If I am gone and he does not find
me when he returns home from inspections, he wanders about as if lost,
and does not even relish his food, though the same cook has prepared it
for years. And he, who forgets nothing and knows by name a large number
of the many thousand men he commands, would very probably, when I am
away, join the troops with only sandals on his feet. To miss my ugly old
face really can not be so difficult! When he wooed me, of course I
looked very different. And so--he confessed it himself--so he always
sees me, and most plainly when I am absent from his sight. But that,
Hermon, will be your good fortune also. All you now know as young and
beautiful will continue so to you as long as this sorrowful blindness
lasts, and on that very account you must not remain alone, my boy--that
is, if your heart has already decided in favour of any one--and that is
the case, unless these old eyes deceive me."

"Daphne," he answered dejectedly, "why should I deny that she is dear to
me? And yet, how dare the blind man take upon himself the sin of binding
her young life--"

"Stop! stop!" Thyone interrupted with eager warmth. "She loves you, and
to be everything to you is the greatest happiness she can imagine."

"Until repentance awakes, and it is too late," he answered gravely.
"But even were her love strong enough to share her husband's misfortune
patiently--nay, perhaps with joyous courage--it would still be
contemptible baseness were I to profit by that love and seek her hand."